In recent years, ink jet printers have bee n rapidly pervaded because of their high applicability to full color printing and their low noise in the printing. The ink jet printers take a recording system in which ink drops are discharged as a high-speed inkjet from the nozzles of the printers toward the recording materials to be printed. In such a recording system, ink has high solvent content. For this reason, recording sheets for ink jet printers are required to exhibit rapid ink absorption and excellent color development.
There is a tendency for ink jet printers to have increased discharge of ink in compliance with demands such as high resolution and high distinction. Thus, attempts are made to improve ink absorption with a recording medium in which an ink-receiving layer is formed on a base film so as to have an increased amount of coating or to contain ink particles in large quantities. Both attempts, however, result in a lowering of printing density and in an occurrence of ink bleeding.
Furthermore, in most cases, ink-receiving layers contained in the conventional recording media have poor water resistance, and images printed in the ink-receiving layers may be disordered by rain or dew. The conventional recording media can, therefore, find no outdoor applications with possible exposure to rain or dew, such as outdoor signboards.